The Last Beekeeper

6. Three

Three

The first time Solma saw an insect, she was four. She remembers the bright spring sun, the echo of her father’s voice.

“Look, Sol!”

He’d spoken softly and she’d leant into the bristles of his beard, half terrified, half fascinated, as she stared at the marvel on his palm. It couldn’t fly, of course. All the flying insects disappeared long before Solma was born, and even seeing a ground insect was unusual. Solma watched it, transfixed. Six restless legs, an iridescent carapace, antennae ceaselessly searching.

“Why’s it doing that?” she asked.

“It’s smelling,” he told her. “It don’t know what we are.”

Solma scoffed. “Silly! How come it don’t know?”

Her Dja smiled at her. “Do you know what it is, little Sol?”

That shut her up. It was amazing to think there were things in the world she’d never seen, creatures she’d never known. It was a beetle, Dja told her. Carabidae. A species of ground beetle.

“What’s the point in it?”

Dja held her close. “It helps the world go round,” he told her. “It burrows in the ground and eats decay. Helps the world stay clean. They’re caretakers of the Earth, Sol. Very important.”

“Very important,” she’d echoed, and held her hands out so the little insect could crawl across her palm.

Solma remembers the strange, not-quite-there sensation of that beetle’s feet as she sits beside Warren and holds out her dirt-encrusted hand. The insect—for it can only be an insect—wanders groggily over the mound, seems to contemplate her fingertips for a moment and then clambers aboard.

Its feet are so light, she can barely feel them. She holds the creature up to her face, frowning as it waggles its antennae. Its gold-and-black striped body gleams in the sun, fuzzy to the point of ridiculous, with delicate gossamer wings and antennae that twitch curiously. Solma stares.

“What is it, d’you think?”

It isn’t a beetle. Solma knows that much. Warren’s pulling at her fingertips, straining to see. Solma suppresses a smile and holds the creature out so he can get a better look. Warren’s eyes widen.

“That’s a bee!” he whispers. Solma scoffs.

“No it isn’t,” she laughs, ruffling his hair. “It can’t be, can it? There ain’t no more bees.”

No one has seen one in over a century. This can’t possibly be a bee.

Still. What’s the harm in letting her brother hope?

She watches it wriggling on her finger. She can feel it now if she concentrates. The lightest brush of life against her skin. It buzzes its wings half-heartedly and Warren grins with delight. Solma can’t help grinning, too. It’s been such a long time since she’s seen him smile.

“Why don’t it fly away?” Warren asks. “You think it’s sick?”

Solma gently cups her other hand over the insect and draws it close to her chest. Could it be sick? The thought makes her sick, too. The summer skies have been empty of flying things for such a long time that suddenly she can’t bear the thought of this one falling ill. It buzzes against her again, shuffling down her finger and into her palm, as if accepting the safety she’s offering. Its little body thrums, begging protection.

“Maybe it is sick,” Solma concedes, then balks at the stricken look on Warren’s face. “We’ll save it,” she says without thinking.

It’s a daft thought. She doubts they can save it. If it really is a bee, it’s the only one she’s ever seen. Where can it possibly have come from?

Warren scratches his head, “It’s probably thirsty,” he says. “And we should give it some sugar. That’ll cheer it up!”

Solma smiles despite herself. “It ain’t about cheering it up!” she points out. “It’s about making it better.”

Warren shrugs. “It won’t get better if it’s sad. Come on, let’s take it home.”

Solma raises an eyebrow. “What are we supposed to carry it in, eh?”

Warren fumbles in his pockets. They are so grubby and full of holes it’s a wonder things don’t fall out of them. At last, he pulls a little box out and holds it up in triumph.

“We can’t use a matchbox!” Solma exclaims. “What would Aunt Bell say?”

Warren shrugs. “It’s nearly empty,” he points out, popping it open to show a single match remaining. “It won’t mind sharing the box with one match.”

Solma frowns. But her pockets yield nothing better. In fact, they’re grubbier than Warren’s. Holding the little bee Solma is painfully aware that both their hands are thin and pale and cold, their bellies swollen with hunger and, though Solma’s flesh-and-bone foot is laced into her Guard-issue boot, both Warren’s feet are bare. They can’t possibly nurse the little insect back to health. There isn’t even enough food at home for her and Warren.

She opens her hands and peers between her fingers at the small, stripy life humming between them.

It does look like it could be a bee. Solma cradles the precious creature close again. She watches its abdomen pulse with life, its fluffy body bristling against her fingers.

“It would make Olive properly jealous,” Warren says, and Solma laughs.

“Yeah,” she agrees, marveling (not for the first time) at how easily her brother reads her. It would make Olive wild with envy. Not that she’d be able to tell Olive. Not before they tell Blaiz, anyway. But Olive’s one upped her enough times that to be the one who found this little thing, to be the bearer of such news … Olive’s face would be a picture. And really, that’s what settles it. That and the hope on Warren’s face.

“Alright,” she says. “Bring the box here, then.”

They persuade the little creature into the matchbox and carefully slide the lid closed. Solma flexes her right leg a couple of times, testing the joint. For the first time, Warren notices she’s on the ground and looks sheepish.

“You ok?” he asks. “Does your lucky leg hurt?”

Solma smiles despite herself. Lucky leg. It hadn’t felt very lucky when she’d lost it, but trust Warren to see it that way. “If Roseann hadn’t taken it off, you’d have died!” he’d said as she’d recovered at home. “It’s a very lucky leg!”

She shakes her head at him. “The lucky leg’s fine, Warren,” she says. “It’s my right knee. Running like that makes it hurt. So, don’t run off like that, ok?”

Warren makes his best guilty face. “Ok,” he agrees. Solma ruffles his hair again and heaves herself up with the help of the fence post. Her right knee holds. She stares at the matchbox in her hand and marvels again at the tiny, miraculous life it contains.

Warren wants to keep it in his pocket all the way home, but Solma isn’t having that.

“I’ll be careful,” he protests.

“I know,” Solma says. “But what if you fall and squash it?”

The thought horrifies Warren enough that he concedes immediately. Solma keeps her hand in her pocket, loosely cupped around the matchbox and its treasured cargo, as they pick their way out of the pollinating fields, between the milling clusters of planters. There are barely enough seeds this year to keep them busy. And as Solma scuffs her blade against the dusty earth, the topsoil gives easily, curling into the air in little dust clouds. Not good.

She glances across the fields to where the distant watch tower is a grey smear on the horizon. Maxen and the rest of her squad will be meeting there shortly. Half an hour, Maxen said. She’s going to be late. Well, Warren can’t come on the outer patrols anyway. She’s just doing her duty, walking him back to the village before she rejoins her squad.

The path back to the village is a depressing one.

The territory’s meagre fields and orchards are all but barren. The Earth Whisperers did their best with the soil last year, but even their mysterious talents weren’t enough. The rains came late and left early, so the village remains in the grip of a long drought: cold in winter and sweltering in summer. Solma knows, too, that at least a third of the village’s pollenbots were damaged during the winter and with limited pollinating kits, it will be a miracle if their feeble seeds yield any crop. They barely have enough to last until the next harvest, which will be pathetic anyway, and last year’s province-wide crop failure means even the poorest villages are now at risk from Raiders. Solma’s good mood doesn’t last long as she stares at the dry fields. She may only have lived sixteen years in this wasteland, but it’s long enough to have choked the hope from her heart.

She places a hand on Warren’s shoulder and hugs him close. He’s desperately skinny, his legs bowed from rickets, his green eyes watery and his red-gold hair lank and thin. Her little brother is already malnourished. The truth is, he won’t survive another crop failure. He’ll go the way of so many other younger brothers and sisters.

Solma’s heart trembles at the idea.

Hold onto the bee, she thinks. Hold onto the little creature whose ancestors once made fields of fruit flourish, whose slender legs and furry bodies once carried the hope of vast cities from flower to flower, ensuring the food supply of millions. There are no cities anymore, of course. They collapsed a hundred years ago, when the insects died. And Solma would be surprised if there were even a million people living in the whole of Alphor nowadays. No cities, and no bees.

Until now.